SubscribeI realized I never talk about agents, editors, publishing, querying, or “trying to get published” often (if ever) on this blog. I don’t really talk about the industry, in other words. Thinking about why, I’ve realized that it comes down to two things: firstly, I’m not an authority on the industry, and I don’t want to seem to be. Reviewing books or talking about the world from my perspective are things I can do fairly comfortably but I don’t really like taking about things that actual agents, editors, and other publishing industry associated folks can discuss better than I can. I highly admire the agents and editors whose blogs I’ve stumbled across for what they do and the passion that keeps them going to work every day. What they write on their blogs is often interesting, varied, and valuable, and I know I could never discuss the blogosphere’s publishing industry topics the way they do. So I don’t.
The second reason I don’t really talk about the industry is that I’ve always been a very private person when it comes to a lot having to do with writing. My experience with the industry and what I’m doing regarding getting published falls into that category, too, I’ve found. I just… don’t really want to talk about it with the world at large. I’ll talk to friends or fellow aspiring authors about it but I won’t really go into a one-sided discussion here about it. I doubt I ever really will.
I’ve been thinking about the industry a lot lately, however, firstly because of the current economic climate, but secondly because I’ve finally gotten caught up on reading all of the recent entries of my way too many feeds of blogs written by agents, editors, and authors on my Google Reader. (I just subscribed to a whole bunch of new ones based on a few “best of 2008″ articles and discussions I’ve seen.) I even emailed a question-and-answer blog the one pressing pre-query question I’ve had for ages and she got back to me promptly with a terrific answer (which was… I’m over-thinking the issue. As I’d suspected! I over-think everything. Even this entry!).
Reading and thinking about all of the issues discussed on those blogs ultimately exhausts, inspires, and depresses me, all at once. I come away from reading them thinking of how eager I am to query… then how I’m not ready to yet… and the eagerness comes to a stumbling halt. Which then loops around to me getting energized about writing all over again… then once the eager energy spike subsides I go peruse Google Reader and… well, there you go. The cycle. No wonder I don’t really want to talk about the industry here. I mean, I should be writing fiction, right? Leave the industry speak to the pros.
Currently I’m in the “energized” writing stage of the cycle. I started a brand-spanking new draft last week (I know, I’m terrible!) and I’m hooked on it. It’s… so addictive. But the problem is I really ought to be pounding away at my main project instead, which has been dead in the water since before Christmas (oh, holidays, how you thoroughly threw off my groove). I need to recussitate it and get moving on that and then, I think, take a once-weekly “writing holiday” (as inspired by an article a friend linked me by writer Holly Lisle) and work on the new draft. We’ll see how my discipline holds out. I really need to get a project finished soon, though, or I might go mad. I want to get the ball rolling!
What’s weird about my writing this new draft, though, is that lately the newer the draft, the faster it’s written. It darn near drops out of my head fully formed, à la Athena. The world is unusual, too; it’s not the world of my series. The characters, plot (well, for the most part), backstory, voice have all just come fully realized. (Which is probably due in part to the fact that this draft is the one inspired by a dream I had last month that I woke up from thinking “Oh, that’d make a good novel,” and well, it is, so far.) But it’s weird. Even with the dream — a series of disconnected images and impressions of backstory and character — helping me, I still plunged into the draft taking more risks with plot and scene than I really ever have at any other point (other than NaNoWriMo’s novel). That is what makes it thrilling. Kamikaze noveling! Me, an empty page, and fingers flying across the keyboard. it’s thrilling and it reminds me why I love to write. Where I used to spend pages and pages worldbuilding (and infodumping) and setting the stage for what would happen by chapter three or four, with this draft (and the two most recent ones before it) it happens in chapter one. It’s like I’m writing a screenplay; the action starts early and drives the plot forward with thrilling momentum. Also that and I find I am getting more and more impatient to get to the meat of the story so starting with a bang helps me jump right into the good stuff. Which made me realize — if I don’t find the interesting beginning set up interesting any longer, what exactly about it had me interested way back when? Spending the first chapter setting up the world doesn’t make sense any longer when I know now how to show that world and how to make the world shine by having my character go out into it and look around. This should probably be my approach to writing new drafts of the old stuff. Just set what’s already done aside and start writing those stories I know so well from scratch.
Jeez, I’d intended this to be a short entry. I don’t think I’m capable of an entry that isn’t a thousand words or more… Well. Back to the grindstone!
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Haha, well for you this IS a short entry! :P
“Reading and thinking about all of the issues discussed on those blog ultimately exhausts, inspires, and depresses me, all at once.”
Me too…
But this new novel of yours does sound good, just from what you’re talking about (starting out in Chap 1 instead of 3 or 4, being addictive, feeling energized). I always think it’s a good sign when I can make myself emotional from my own stories, because then how could a reader not be affected too?